


Something for the Fridge

by moosh



Series: Pepperony Teen Pregnancy/Adoption AU where Peter is their kid [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Peter Parker is Pepper Potts's Biological Child, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25074373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moosh/pseuds/moosh
Summary: May asks Tony and Pepper for a favor.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Pepper Potts, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Pepperony Teen Pregnancy/Adoption AU where Peter is their kid [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815835
Comments: 21
Kudos: 210





	Something for the Fridge

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I've got a lot of thoughts about this AU, but not the patience to write an entire story. So I've decided to just compile a series of one shots.
> 
> **Oh GOD. So the Skip that was in this was NOT supposed to be the Sketchy Skip from the comics! Literally picked the first name that popped up on a random name generator. Sorry if you read that and it worried you! I'm changing it to another random name. Yikes I'm sorry fam.**

May sighed as she looked down at the letter. The letter that had appeared in their mailbox two days after Richard and Mary died, the letter that she’d kept tucked away for years never intending to use, but thankful that it was there nonetheless. Ben didn’t want her to contact them since it wasn’t an emergency, but they’d made it very clear that if Peter ever needed _anything_ they’d help. Ben and May were far from rich, but Peter had never gone without anything. He’d always had clothes and shoes and food and a respectable amount of presents for birthdays and holidays, but this was different. Peter had been invited to attend a very prestigious Summer camp at MIT, but between travel, tuition, food and housing the whole thing would cost about $5000, which they just couldn't swing.

Ben argued that $5000 was an awful lot to spend on sending a 10 year old to Summer camp, and May didn’t disagree, but she still wanted this for Peter. She’d never seen him happier than when he came home with the acceptance letter, so she wanted to do everything she could to get him there. He was such a bright and eager kid. He loved taking apart old electronics so he could figure out how they worked. He loved reading, he loved drawing, he even loved doing _math_ , which mystified May, but she just figured that he just took after his parents. _His biological parents_. And while this opportunity wasn’t something that she and Ben could afford to give him, she was certain that Tony Stark and Pepper Potts could.

According to Richard and Mary, Peter’s biological parents were a couple of teenagers from Long Island who’d made a mistake, which was a perfectly acceptable answer, so when Tony and Pepper contacted them she was pretty shocked.

May grew up in Queens, so she knew who Howard Stark was. He was a hero in her neighborhood. Hell, she could see the Stark Expo from the window in her bedroom as a kid. He and Maria died right around the time that Richard and Mary, so May hadn’t paid too much attention to it all, but she remembered seeing a photo of Tony in the newspaper. She didn’t even realize that Howard Stark had children, but the photo of Tony at the funeral stuck with her. He looked so lost and so scared and it just made her think about Peter.

After the letter arrived, after she learned who Peter’s biological parents were, she spent days at the library digging. There wasn’t anything on _Pepper Potts_ , but there was a Virginia Potts who graduated from high school a year after Tony, so she figured that was her. Pepper had gone on to attend Harvard Business School before landing a job in the Stark Industries finance department. There was loads of stuff about Tony too. Mostly profiles in science magazines and some research articles he’d written, but she read as much as she could.

Nowadays if you wanted to know what they were up to all you had to do was turn to the gossip pages. They were always stumbling out of some club, or hanging out with rock stars, or having sex somewhere they shouldn’t. Their most recent escapades were pretty bad though, which was another reason Ben didn’t seem too keen on giving them a call.

“Do you really want to ask a couple of reckless coke heads for money? How do they even have time to run that company?” Ben asked as he flipped through last week's copy of the National Enquirer again, looking at the photos.

Tony and Pepper had been pulled over for doing 110MPH on the Long Island expressway and were arrested when the officers found cocaine in Tony’s pocket. They had great lawyers though and barely got a slap on the wrist, but the photos of them standing on the side of the highway looking like rich, spoiled brats were all over the papers. There was one photo that May kept coming back to, one photo that gave her a bit of hope. They were sitting next to each other and Pepper was wearing Tony’s coat while he held her close and kissed her forehead. They looked very much in love and the fact they were still together after all these years had to mean something.

“Look, if they can spend all that money on an ugly car and a fancy-ass lawyer, they can spend five grand on their actual son. I’m calling.” May said as she picked up the phone and dialed.

\---

Pepper was leaned back in Tony’s chair with her legs spread and her skirt hiked up as she came down from her second orgasm, while Tony was on his knees between her legs looking quite pleased with himself. She grabbed him by the tie and pulled him up for a sloppy kiss, not quite ready for their lunch break to be over. “Well, Mr. Stark.” She said, in between kisses. “That was quite impressive.”

Tony just chuckled as he pulled away and looked at her. “I’m glad you approve, Ms. Potts. And I must say, you look quite comfortable in that chair. Looking for a promotion?”

“ _Maybe_.” She teased.

“You just wanna boss me around don’t ya?”

“Always.” She said before pulling him into another kiss.

Just then Tony’s office phone rang, which made both of them jump. His secretary was under strict orders to not disturb them unless the building was on fire, and the only other people who had the direct number were Pepper and Obie, who was in Tokyo. Tony popped up and quickly grabbed the phone, knocking a cup of pencils over in the process.

“Hello?” Tony answered as he adjusted his tie. Pepper heard the muffled voice of someone on the other end, but couldn’t make out who it was. It definitely wasn’t his secretary or Obie though, so she sat up and adjusted her skirt.

“Who is this? How did you get this number?” Tony asked, clearly confused. As the muffled voice began to speak again his eyes widened. “Wait wait, what? Yeah this is Tony is - what’s wrong? Is everything ok? Is he ok?” He demanded with panic in his voice, and suddenly Pepper knew exactly who it was. “Ok ok wait, hold on let me put you on speaker. Pepper is here too.” Tony said before fumbling around with the phone. “It’s May Parker.”

Pepper’s heart began to pound as she sat up straight, never really expecting a phone call like this. She reached out and grabbed Tony’s hand as he put the call on speaker, not sure what to do or say.

“Hey!” A cheery voice said over the speaker. “No no, god. Sorry if I scared you. Peter’s fine. Hey Pepper! This is weird, huh?”

Pepper let out a sigh of relief as she squeezed Tony’s hand, just glad that Peter was OK. “Hi! Yes, a little weird. Peter’s good though?”

“Yes, he’s totally fine. He’s at school right now and they’re having pizza for lunch so he’s great.”

Pepper smiled, weirdly happy to learn something about her son. He liked pizza. “Good. That’s good to hear. God, is he - he’s in what? Fourth grade?”

“Fifth actually! Middle School next year. He’s very excited.”

“Oh! Wow. Yeah, yeah he’s 10. That makes sense. So what’s up?” She asked, knowing that May was calling because she needed something, which was totally fine, but still weird. Tony and Pepper had met Richard and Mary, they’d been to their house, they saw where Peter was going to grow up. They didn’t know Ben and May at all, and even though Tony had done an _extensive_ background check on them when Peter first went to live with them, they were still complete strangers.

“May?” Tony asked.

“Yeah! I’m here, I’m here. All right, so. I’ll preface this by saying that you do not have to say yes, but you did say if he ever needed anything that I could reach out. And ya know, while Ben and I aren’t rich Peter has always had everything he’s needed and more. But this is just a bit out of our reach.”

“Ok.” Pepper said, very curious.

“So Peter is _really_ smart. Like, scary smart. And he loves science and building things and _math_ , god he loves math. Next year he’ll be able to try out for the math team and he’s very excited about it which is the most adorable thing ever, though I’m not looking forward to sitting through math competitions. Tee Ball was bad enough.” May explained as Tony and Pepper looked at each other and laughed. They’d both been mathletes in high school, so they knew what those competitions were like.

“Anyway, so he’s in the science club right now. And his teacher recommended a few of the kids for some Summer camp at MIT and Peter got in. And it’d be so great for him, you don’t even know. He goes to a public school and they’re fine, but it’s New York City. They don’t have any money or equipment, and we don’t even have a computer at home. So I just want this for him. He’s so smart and I want him to have this experience and see what’s out there. It’s 3 weeks on campus and he’d get to build rocket ships and blow things up and just learn all sorts of things that he can’t learn here. And we thought that we might be able to get a scholarship or get some money from the school, but we can’t. And it’s gonna be about $5000 which we just don’t have. So. That’s why I’m calling. I’m just wondering if you guys would be able to help.”

Pepper felt a bit guilty listening to May while glancing over at her purse, which definitely cost _more_ than $5000. In fact, there was a good chance Tony just had $5000 in cash in his pocket right now.

“Of course!” Tony said immediately, and they were both beaming. They never stopped loving Peter, never stopped caring about him, so it was just nice to hear that he was doing well. “Not a problem at all. I’ll get you the money. I’ll - ya know - whatever you need! This is awesome! I know _exactly_ what program he’s going to! I taught there for a few Summers while I was getting my PhD, actually. We affectionately called it Nerd Camp. I might even still have a Nerd Camp t-shirt somewhere. That’s - I can’t - I’m sorry.” Tony rambled before taking a deep breath. “Yes. I will figure out how to get you the money or how to pay for it, all right? Don’t worry. Actually. I’ll call Paulie. He’s still in charge of all of it I think. I’ll see if anyone else needs paid for too, ok? I’ll take care of it today. Thank you for reaching out. Seriously. This is what we meant when we said we’d always help.”

May laughed at Tony’s rambling, which made Pepper feel better too. They’d always kept their distance like they were supposed to, always kept their mouths shut like they were supposed to. She didn’t want May to think they were going to suddenly try to infringe on her life, they just wanted to help. Though Pepper would give pretty much _anything_ to just have a recent photo of him. She cherished the photos that Tony took in the hospital and desperately wished they had more.

“God, thank you so much. He’s gonna lose his mind when I tell him that he can go! It’s all he’s been talking about for weeks and when we told him that he might not be able to do it he was crushed. I know you’ve had a lot going on these past few weeks, so I appreciate you taking the time to do this.”

Pepper sighed, knowing she was alluding to their recent arrest and photo spread in the tabloids. It had _not_ been a good few weeks, but they were mostly past it now. “It’s not a problem at all. I’ll make sure that Tony takes care of it today. And just, _thank you_ , it sounds like he’s doing well. So thank you for taking him in _after_ \- after Richard and Mary passed.”

“Well he’s a great kid and we love him a whole lot, and they loved him too.”

“That’s good to hear.” Pepper said with a smile. After that an awkward sort of silence fell over them, and Tony just gave Pepper a confused look.

“Right well, thank you again.” May said, finally breaking the silence. “Just uh, if you need anything else from me please let me know.”

“Yeah of course! I’ll call Paulie as soon as we’re done!” Tony said as he stood up.

“Awesome. You’re gonna make his whole year. I can’t wait to tell him. Maybe we’ll uh, speak soon or something? Or not, I don’t know. This is all still weird. Thank-”

“May?” Pepper interrupted, sensing that she was about to hang up, and she figured that if she didn’t do this now she might never get another chance to.

“Yeah?”

“Just. Before you go. I just have some questions. About Peter. If that’s ok?”

“Sure!” May reapplied cheerfully.

“So he likes pizza? And he likes math. What else? What’s his favorite color? Favorite TV show? Does he have freckles?” Pepper asked, hoping this was ok. Maybe it was bad that she was asking these questions, maybe it was going to cause more pain, but she just needed to know. It was possible that they’d never speak to these people ever again and if she missed out on this she’d never forgive herself.

May laughed again though, which seemed to be a good sign. “Yeah, he likes pizza. Just plain cheese though, he’s a bit picky. Right now his favorite color is red, but for a while it was blue and before that lime green. He’s really into Star Trek at the moment because he’s been watching old episodes with Ben. He has a few freckles on his cheeks, big brown eyes, and floppy brown hair which needs a cut. And he likes Lego and Hot Wheels and he always builds massive tracks around the apartment out of whatever he can find. He likes sports too! He does Little League every year, but he’s not that good. He and Ben go to a lot of Mets games though.”

“Eugh he’s a Mets fan?” Tony interrupted, horrified. “We should have put that in the adoption paperwork. Not allowed.”

“Well if you’re a Parker, you’re a Mets fan. Those are the rules. Sorry pal. But I should go, he’ll be home soon. Thank you again. And also? Slow down, please. And lay off the coke. And stop hanging out at clubs ‘til 4AM. You guys run a Fortune 500 company, it’s not a good look.”

Tony and Pepper both looked down at the floor like a couple of teenagers who were being scolded by their mother, but they knew she was right.

“Yeah. We’ll work on that. Thanks May, we’ll be in touch.” Tony said, sounding a bit dejected. They said their goodbyes before Tony hung up and soon he and Pepper were alone again.

There were a million things running through Pepper’s mind right now, but more than anything she was just glad that he was OK and was with people who loved him and seemed to want the best for him. It was always hard knowing that he was out there and not knowing _anything._

“Well. Uh. That was...odd. Can’t believe the kid’s a Mets fan. Starks have been Yankee fans since forever.”

“He’s not a Stark, he’s a Parker.” Pepper pointed out as she stood up and smoothed out her skirt. “You’ll call Paulie?”

“Yeah, I’ll call now. I’ll pay for Peter, I’ll pay for any kid who needs it. Hell, I’ll pay for all of them.” Tony said as he sat back down at his desk. “I love you. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. Take care of him. We always do.”

And take care of it, Tony did. He not only paid for every single kid who’d already been accepted, he donated enough money to have an entire other session, which doubled the amount of kids who were able to go. This act of charity was all over the papers and it was a nice change of pace seeing Tony’s face plastered all over for doing something good, though a lot of people just called it a stunt. It didn’t matter though, Peter got to go to Nerd Camp along with a few hundred other kids, so at the end of the day they both felt pretty good about it. Plus, with Tony paying for everyone, no one could find a check for $5000 written to a random woman in Queens and start looking into it.

Tony and Pepper still wanted to do something special for him though, and with Ben and May’s permission they sent him the best computer that money could buy and justified it by sending a letter saying he’d won a contest at the camp. It felt a bit like playing with fire, like they were getting too close. But they weren’t going to try to see him or talk to him and they weren’t going to send him anything else. They just wanted to make sure he had a nice computer. That was it though, they were done. If Ben and May needed anything else they could reach out, but Tony and Pepper were done.

Mostly.

Letters from all of the kids who’d gone to Nerd Camp poured into the Stark Industries mail room, and normally stuff like that ended up in the hands of interns who’d go through it and send back a form letter and a sticker. All the kids who wrote in still got those things, but Tony had insisted on reading each letter himself first. Every few days he’d bring home a big envelope packed with mail from Nerd Camp kids and he and Pepper would spend the night going through it. It was nice for Tony to see how much good he’d done and how much the kids appreciated it, but that wasn’t their main goal. They were looking for a letter from Peter. And about a week after he got the computer it finally arrived.

Pepper was the one who found it while Tony was busy reading something else. “Tony?” She said, holding the red envelope.

Tony stopped reading and looked up. A smile spread across his face as he jumped up and joined Pepper on the couch. He took the envelope from her and ran his hands over the words written on the front. The handwriting was neat, but definitely the work of a kid. Pepper gave Tony’s knee a squeeze as he carefully opened it, both of them weirdly nervous about this whole thing.

The card was handmade, and on the front was a robot waving and saying _Thank You!_ , which was drawn pretty well. Inside was a note written in red marker, which Tony quickly read out loud.

_Dear Mr. Stark and everyone at the Stark Foundation,_

_Thank you for the computer and for sending all of us to camp this Summer! It was the most fun I’ve ever had. I loved getting to use the big microscope and also learning about different chemical reactions. I also learned a lot about electronics and got to design and build a remote control robot! His name is Marcus and we won for best design for my age! I can’t wait to make him even better, so I hope I get to come back next Summer! I want to try to win another computer so that my Uncle Ben has one too. Thank you very much._

_Sincerely,_

_Peter Parker_

_ps, here’s a picture of me and Marcus after we won the design contest! I wanted you to see him._

“Wait, is there a picture?” Tony asked looking around to see if he’d dropped something. Some of the other kids had sent photos, so this wasn’t out of the ordinary, but he hadn’t seen one when he pulled the note out. Pepper grabbed the envelope and spotted a Polaroid tucked inside which she quickly pulled out. She held her breath as she flipped it over and couldn’t help tearing up a bit when she finally laid eyes on him. In one hand he had a small, red robot that looked a lot like the one he’d drawn on the front, and in the other he had a certificate for best robot design. She just started at it for a while before trading Tony for the card. They didn’t say much to each other, but they held hands the entire time. While they didn’t speak about Peter all that much, it was obvious that they both still loved him.

After a while Tony cleared his throat and handed Pepper the photo. “Right. Well. I’m glad he had fun. Let’s um. We got more of these to go through.” Tony said as he stood up, but Pepper held onto his hand.

“They can wait. Come on, let’s go watch TV or something.” She suggested as she stood as well.

“Ok. Ok yeah, that sounds good. Where are you going to put those?” He asked, motioning to the card and photo.

“Somewhere safe, don’t worry. And I’ll make sure he gets his sticker.”

“Good. We did the right thing with him, right?”

“We did, of course we did.”

“Sometimes I worry that we just gave him up so that we could party.”

“We gave him up because we were 16 and ill-equipped to raise a child and we both wanted to go to college. He’s good, Tony. He’s safe, he’s happy, he’s healthy. He’s with people who love him just as much as we do, and we’re still looking out for him, ok? Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him and wonder what he’s doing, but he’s good. Look at the picture again, he’s good.” She said as she held up the picture.

He looked at it for a moment and nodded. “Yeah. It’s just...hard, ya know?”

“I know.”

“Yeah. Come on, let’s go watch something dumb.” He said with a smile.

“I want popcorn.”

“Of course. By the way Pep, we make cute kids. We should uh...try that again at some point. If you want.” He suggested as they walked to the kitchen.

Pepper certainly wasn’t opposed to having another kid some day, but not now. “Oh really? Maybe if you actually propose at some point I’ll consider it.” She said with her eyebrows raised, which shut Tony up quick. She laughed as she turned and hung the card and photo up on the fridge, knowing full-well that they couldn’t leave them up there for long. Still, it’d be nice to spend at least one night having their sons’ artwork hanging on the fridge.


End file.
